In an ABC interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook, Cook apologized once again for the battery slowdowns and stated a future iOS will allow users to disable this "feature".

In the interview, Tim Cook discussed the huge 38 billion tax payment they are going to make to the U.S.government and their new datacenter in Nevada. Of course, during the interview the topic of Apple purposely slowing down iPhones to prevent unexpected restarts came up.

Cook mentioned how a new feature will be added in a developer release of iOS next month that will show a user the health of their battery. According to Cook, this feature will also let a user know how much their performance is being affected by a degraded battery and whether it is recommended to be replaced.

An interesting tidbit that was also mentioned by Cook was that they will also be adding the ability for users to disable this restart protection "feature" if they are willing to take the restart risks that are associated with it.

We're slightly reducing your performance by some amount in order to prevent a unexpected restart. And if you do not want it, you can turn it off. Now we don't recommend it becuase we think people's iPhones are really important to them and you can never really tell when something is so urgent.

Due to the concern about Apple intentionally slowing down their devices, for now Apple has reduced the price of battery replacements from $79 to $29. If you are using an older phone and feel that you are affected by this slowdown, you can make an appointment at a local Apple store and take advantage of the reduced price.

Lawrence Abrams is the creator and owner of BleepingComputer.com. Lawrence's area of expertise includes malware removal and computer forensics. Lawrence Abrams is a co-author of the Winternals Defragmentation, Recovery, and Administration Field Guide and the technical editor for Rootkits for Dummies.